Chapter sixteen
The hotel that Josh reserved online is gorgeous. It has mosaicked columns and a babbling courtyard fountain and dozens of succulents dangling from planters on the walls.
Unfortunately, it was too early to check in.
The tension inside our cab is heavy. Tangible. I don’t know how we’re supposed to wait, but we’ve been left with no choice but to explore the city first.
We’re splashing towards the heart of Barcelona. Red-and-yellow-striped flags – some with the blue triangle and star of independence, some without – hang everywhere from apartment balconies, soaked with storm. The city’s appearance is distinctly Western European, but it’s also filled with colourful architecture and steep hills. Palm trees and leafy trees. Purple vines and red flowers.
“It’s almost like a Parisian San Francisco,” Josh says.
Either he’s trying to change the subject from the obvious one, or he’s thinking about his friends in California. Probably best to change the subject. “Speaking of, how are St. Clair and Anna doing these days?” I ask.
“Good.” He sits up straighter. “They’re pretty much living together now.”
“Wow. Already? Do you think they’ll last?”
Josh frowns. “Yeah, of course.” And then he sees my expression. “Sorry. Sometimes I forget that you don’t really know them.”
I don’t forget.
They watch me, stare back at me, every time I’m in his room. The wall-to-wall drawings make his friends a constant, unspoken presence. I wish I knew them better. I want them to know that I exist, that I’m a part of Josh’s life now, too.
“St. Clair and Anna are one of those couples that seem like they were made for each other,” he says. “Instant friendship, instant chemistry. He was obsessed with her from the moment they met. She was the only thing he ever wanted to talk about. Still is, actually.”
“I like Anna. I mean, I like St. Clair, too – he was always friendly to me – but I don’t know him as well. Not that Anna and I ever hung out.” I don’t know why I’m babbling. Maybe so I won’t feel untethered from this part of his life. “But she did live on my floor. And the first week of school, she told off Amanda Spitterton-Watts on my behalf.”
Josh grins. “She punched her, too. Last spring.”
“I know. That was weird.” I laugh. “But also awesome.”
Amanda was the Emily Middlestone of last year – the school’s most popular mean girl. I saw Anna throw the unexpected punch, and it was my testimony that kept her from being suspended. I felt like I owed her. And not just for sticking up for me in the past, but…she knew about my crush on Josh. She once caught me absent-mindedly doodling his tattoo. I thought for sure she’d tell him, but she never did. He never side-eyed me with that particular brand of I-know-you-like-me weirdness.
Anyway. I was grateful.
Our cabbie pulls over on Passeig de Gràcia, a large thoroughfare where every shop is emblazoned with an expensive name. Dolce & Gabbana. Salvatore Ferragamo. Yves Saint Laurent. But amid this luxury shines an actual jewel: Casa Milà, aka La Pedrera.
We dash below an awning and squint through the rain, across an intersection, at its curious stone facade. Over a century ago, a wealthy man named Milà commissioned Gaudí to design the building. Its grandiose structure is made entirely of waves and curves. There’s not a single straight line of construction. It was the home of Milà’s family, as well as several renters, but most of the locals despised it as an eyesore – exactly how the same generation of Parisians felt about their own recently built Eiffel Tower.
I wonder how I would have felt about it back then. I’d like to think I would have been one of the people who understood that it was special. That being singular is the exact thing that makes something – or someone – amazing.
“Nice roof,” Josh says. “But your Treehouse is better.”
I nudge him, my own singular and amazing someone, and he nudges me back. La Pedrera’s rooftop terrace is famous. It’s covered in strange, bulky chimneys. Some of them look like giant soft-serve ice-cream cones, others like soldiers in medieval helmets. Tourists march up and down Escher-esque staircases, around and around the chimneys, bumping umbrellas. They’re like boats adrift at sea.
“It’s like an ocean.” Josh’s voice is filled with admiration. “The wavy limestone, the iron railings.” And the balconies look like twists of tentacles and seaweed. Though it’s possible that the weather is adding to our overall perception. Our eyes travel towards the unsheltered line of people waiting to get inside.
“That’s, uh, some crowd,” I say.
“And some rain.”
I glance at him and give a tentative shrug. “Next?”
He grins with relief. “I don’t want to waste a single minute of this day.”
I feel the same way, I think, staring at his dimples.
Kurt’s map walks us down the street towards a second Gaudí-designed house. We affix ourselves to the sides of buildings for protection from the rain, but it doesn’t matter. It soaks us anyway. “It’s your turn,” Josh says. “Tell me about your friends. Sanjita. What happened there?”
“So…you remember.”
“I remember that you were friends with her our freshman year. Did you split because she wanted to be popular? I asked Rashmi once, but she said her sister refused to talk about you.”
The stab to my heart is sharp and unexpected. “You asked your ex-girlfriend about my friendship with her sister?”
“Whoa. No. Not recently. While we were dating.”
“Oh.” Though I’m still confused.
Josh guides me below a neon-green cross, the sheltered entrance of a farmàcia. “Isla. I would never do that to you. I’ve had exactly one exchange with her since school began. About three weeks ago, she texted me to ask how I was doing. I told her I’m great, because I’m seeing you. She wished us well. She’s dating some dude at Brown.”
I wish this knowledge wasn’t as welcome as it is. I try not to think about Rashmi. I try not to think about her and Josh in my room last year. I try not to think about how they probably had sex in my bed. And maybe my shower. And maybe my floor, too.
I try.
Josh interprets my silence as a need for further explanation. “I spent some time with her family one summer. Sanjita was acting out, and I could tell she was depressed. That’s why I asked Rashmi about you guys. So what happened?”
I’ve never told anyone this story before. It takes me a minute to gather my courage. “She’s the only female friend that I’ve ever had, apart from my sisters. When I showed up at our school…I didn’t even know how to make friends.”
Josh removes my hands from my coat pockets. He pulls me closer.
“I mean, Kurt and I were friends before we even knew what the word meant. So it felt like a miracle when Sanjita wanted to hang out with me. And we had fun. And we could talk about boys, and she was interested in fashion, and she was emotional. She was the anti-Kurt. So I should’ve known what would happen when he joined us the following year, but I didn’t. I thought my friends would automatically become friends with each other through…I don’t know. The divine egotistical magic of me.”
Josh winces. “I’m sorry.”
“So he comes to Paris, and she’s embarrassed by him. And I can tell that she wants me to ditch him, and he keeps asking me why she doesn’t like him, and…I’m just stuck between the two of them.”
“Like you were with Sébastien.”
“Worse, because this came first. I wasn’t expecting it.” My voice catches. “Sh— She made me choose. She actually said it. She said Kurt was holding us back.”
He squeezes my hands. “Kurt would never ask you to choose.”
“I know.” Tears spill over my eyes. “And that’s why I chose him.”
Josh looks for something to dry my tears, but we’re already so wet that it’s pointless. We laugh as he tries to dry them with the inner sleeve of his hoodie.
“I’m sorry that happened,” he says. “I’m sorry she hurt you.”
I shrug at my boots.
“If it makes you feel any better? Sanjita was miserable for, like, a full year after you guys stopped hanging out. Even after her social-climbing aspirations had been met, and she’d become friends with Emily. I think she still has regrets about what she did.”
“I know she does. When I look at her, I see them, too.”
“Do you have any regrets?”
“Only that I stopped trying to make new friends. Between her and Sébastien? Ugh.” I give our connected hands a single swing. “But someone recently taught me that not everyone is so judgemental.”
Josh shakes his head. “I don’t know. I can be pretty judgemental.”
“Yeah, but…it’s like you’re on the right side of the law.”
He smiles.
I poke his chest. “You wanna see something cool?”
“I’m looking at it.”
“Shut up.” I laugh. “Turn around.”
We’re standing across the street from Casa Batlló, another Gaudí masterpiece. The surface is covered in ceramic-shard mosaics – aqua and cobalt, rust and gold – in rough, skinlike patterns. And it has another spectacular rooftop, an animalistic arch of metallic tiles that’s curved like the back of a mighty dragon. I like this building even more.
Josh’s eyes widen with speechlessness.
“See that turret with the cross?” I point to the roof. “Some people think it’s supposed to be the lance of Saint George who’s just slayed the dragon.”
“Architecture. Maybe this is your future.”
“It’s more art than architecture.”
“Same thing,” he says.
I ponder this, but if my interest was that strong, I’d want to rummage around through its insides. I’d want to inspect every angle from as close a vantage point as possible. “Nah,” I finally say. “I just like the story. And the way it looks.”
Josh places an arm around me. “Every art needs its connoisseurs.”
I happily burrow into his wet side.
“What’s next?” he asks, glancing at the clock on his phone.
I look at him in question.
He shakes his head, and we try not to be disappointed. It’s still too early to check in.
Sagrada Família is next. The map easily leads us to the closest transit station. The métro is an unaccented metro, but apart from that, it’s identical to its brother in Paris. When we exit the station, the rain has slowed to a drizzle. And then we see it. Casa Batlló may be a dragon, but Sagrada Família?
It’s a monster.
It wants me to cower. It wants me to weep. It wants to save my soul from hell. Gaudí started work on this church in the late nineteenth century, but it won’t be finished for at least another decade. It stretches twice as high as the tallest cathedrals of France. It looks like a fantasyland castle – wet sand dripped through fingers, both sharp and soft. Bright construction lights are everywhere, and workers are tinkering around its massive spires in dangerously tall cranes.
We circle the entire structure, shading our eyes from the rain, as we look skyward towards the figures that are carved into every inch of its facade. So much is happening, everywhere, that the overall style defies categorization. Some of the spires are topped with mounds of rainbow-coloured grapes, while the west side is austere and tormented, drawing the eyes to an emaciated Jesus on an iron cross. Stone women wail beside a pile of skulls at his feet. But then the east side is an abundance of life – humans and angels and animals and wheat – and topped by a green tree covered in white doves.
“It’s beautiful,” Josh says. “Fuck, that’s beautiful.” Something occurs to me. I’m off running. “Hold that thought!”
“Where are you going?” he shouts.
“I’ll be right back! Don’t move!” I dart across the street and down two blocks until I find a convenience store with a display of umbrellas beside their entrance. I grab the first one, pay for it, and race back with a cheap clear kiddie umbrella.
Josh is confused and upset. “Don’t you think it’s too late for that?”
I hold it above his head as I dig into his backpack. I toss him tomorrow’s T-shirt. “Dry your hands.” He obeys, and then I replace the shirt with his sketchbook and pen. “You have to draw it. When will you get another chance?”
“Isla, I…”
I zip up his bag, step aside, and hold the tiny shelter above his body.
He watches the rain roll down my face. “Thank you,” he says quietly.
I beam back at him. He kisses my cheek and then bends over his pages, further protecting them, as he uncaps his pen with his teeth. He draws quickly, and I have to urge him to slow down. I don’t mind the rain. He focuses on the dove-covered tree. “We have maybe two hours until sundown,” he says, after nearly twenty minutes of silence. “How are you doing? Are you cold?”
“A bit, but I’m okay. There’s only one more destination marked on our map.”
“Do we win a prize if we check off every box?”
“The grand prize.”
He raises an eyebrow as he caps his pen. “Then we’d better do it.”
We admire his drawing together. I like it even better than the real thing. I only see the beauty, not the accompanying fear. Everything Josh touches is beautiful to me.
He puts his sketchbook away as I search for our map. “Oh, no!” I glance in the direction of the convenience store. “I must have dropped it while I was running.”
“Do you remember its name?” He takes the umbrella and holds it over my head. “Not the convenience store. The name of our final destination?”
“Yeah, of course.”
Josh smiles. He unbuttons my coat, places his fingers against my collarbone, and fishes out my necklace from below my dress.
It’s incredibly sexy.
He holds up the compass. “Then we’ll find the Right Way.”